


Like Fire In Your Palms

by ViolentFlowers



Category: Uprooted - Naomi Novik
Genre: Angst, F/F, Femslash Exchange 2015, Kasia POV, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-23
Updated: 2015-10-23
Packaged: 2018-04-19 10:02:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4742186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ViolentFlowers/pseuds/ViolentFlowers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Nieshka was whisked away by the Dragon, Kasia didn’t know what to feel. She was relieved and angry in equal parts. No one expected the Dragon to pick Nieshka. Everyone, including Kasia, had expected Kasia to be chosen. No one knew what to do with her, now that her future was gone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like Fire In Your Palms

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tigrrmilk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tigrrmilk/gifts).



When Nieshka was whisked away by the Dragon, Kasia didn’t know what to feel. She was relieved and angry in equal parts. No one expected the Dragon to pick Nieshka. Everyone, including Kasia, had expected Kasia to be chosen. No one knew what to do with her, now that her future was gone.

Except the men. Their eyes lingered, hungry in the way that her mother had warned her about, when she'd talked about the Dragon. Men had looked at her before, some of the older boys bold enough to suggest that she be ruined before the Dragon consumed her. The men that approached her were more crass, a surprise of ages and circumstances making requests of her. She'd always slipped away from them. It had felt wrong the way they'd looked, the lingering feeling of their touch and their insincere apologies that they hadn't meant to do that, but wouldn’t she just consider that it'd be better for her. They could make her feel good, they said as they closed in on her. She’d put on a brave face and stood tall, but they made her skin crawl and she didn't want any of them.

Afterwards she’d feel unsettled as if they'd already taken something from her, even though she was now safe at home.

Her mother’s smile was touched with sadness when Kasia admitted why she didn’t want to leave the house. The whole story flowed out like frustrated tears, her mother just said she had to be brave, that it was wrong, but not to judge them harshly — for men were like that. Her mother sent her back outside, telling her to hold her head up high regardless. She was promised to the Dragon anyway.

She didn’t think the Dragon was like other men, but she tried not to think about it and instead spend more and more time with Nieshka. Who never looked at her with anything but affection, never tried to corner her or hold her down, just held her hand and smiled at her.  

But after the Dragon took Nieshka and left her behind, it felt like everyone was watching her. Kasia felt trapped, like a butterfly under a pin. Biting her lip, she sat at the feasting-table and endured the looks, the celebration, even the questions. Would she be interested…? Would she consider…? Wasn't she happy?

What excuse could she give now?

She climbed the highest tree in the village as soon as twilight fell and searched in vain to find the Dragon's tower by the light of the stars, missing the warmth from Nieshka's hand when it had gripped hers. Ten years stretched out before her impossibly long.

 

* * *

 

Dreary days and uncomfortable nights followed the choosing. Kasia found herself wishing men would stop trying to woo her. Seventeen years of awkward inappropriate interest had been replaced with a constant low-level pressure that followed her no matter where she went.

The village smith's son had talked to her father, the farmer on the edge of town had stopped her mother. They asked about her, wanted to know if she'd consider being courted.

She didn't have any interest in them. In her heart she was still standing in the village green next to the feasting-tables that were piled high with the tribute for the Dragon, holding Nieshka's hand. She didn't want them, she wanted to ride off to the tower and yell at the Dragon, a man older than her own father with powers that she didn't understand, the only one who stood between them and the Woods.

Kasia didn't accept any of the men’s proposals, and while her parents made understanding expressions they were all to happy to tell her about every boy or man who asked about her. After a month of feeling caged she found excuses to leave her house until late just to get away from them. Her family didn’t understand what was wrong, but they loved her, and that made it worse.

She threw herself into anything that came her way. She had wanted to leave Dvernik all along, desperate to go, wanting something more than the little village hemmed in by the Woods. Kasia didn’t want to spend 10 years living with the Dragon, but at least she’d been promised freedom afterwards. She’d never thought that she’d have find her own path.

Songs were an escape before, so she fell back to them, listening to the troubadours that came to the valley and badgering them to teach her songs. She passed her time thinking that things were getting better, that she was getting back on track, and that’s when the Woods struck, biting deep into the town’s cattle, corrupting them and harrying the entire town to contain the spread of it’s madness. They wouldn’t last the night without help from the Dragon, but everyone who could go for help was needed to hold the infected cows. So they lit the beacon-fire and hoped that the Dragon would see it in his tower.

But Kasia could do it. She’d already brought the men water and what little food they had as they held the cows pinned. She was supposed to rest, but instead, she’d gone running home and raided her brothers’ trunks. Their clothes were baggy and ill-fitting on her, but she was tall enough to make it work. She tucked her braid up under a hat and hoped that if she meet someone on the road in would be the Dragon instead of anything else.

He had to come, or the Woods would fall upon them, and the town would be lost. She set off with determination, only to worry hours later, when she was still miles away. The other towns had lit their own beacons, but where was the Dragon?

Breaking the snow in front of her path, she couldn’t help but fear the worse.

A horse-drawn cart came barreling down the road, slowing as it got closer to her. She threw herself toward it. No one else would be heading this way. Hope made her light-headed. She grabbed ahold of the side and hurriedly explained the situation, remembering how curt the Dragon had been at the choosing. But the blanket covered person she’d thought was the Dragon was thrown back, to reveal Nieshka, alive and well.

They stared at each other as if they were strangers before Nieshka called out Kasia’s name breaking the strange mood. Nieshka’s hand grasped for hers, helping her into the cart. It was so terribly hot against her skin that, for a moment, Kasia thought she’d been burned.

Nieshka was dressed resplendently, as if she was a lady, and Kasia felt a stab of longing and anger so sharp, it left her breathless. She’d thought the worst had been visited upon Nieshka. In her heart, she’d feared for her friend, and yet there she was, so finely decked out in comfort and wealth, while Kasia was covered in dirty ill-fitting clothes.

Her anger boiled hot making her shake, but she noticed the hem of the dress was torn, how the sleeves were pushed up out of the way, and the stiff way Nieshka held herself, as if in discomfort. Nieshka, not noticing her pause, didn’t hesitate to draw Kasia in close, pulling her into a hug. She felt herself holding on, letting the warm reality of her friend chase away the worst of her imagined slights.

The cart barreled on as fast as the horses could bare. They huddled under the blanket to keep out the worse of the biting cold while Nieshka shared her trials with the Dragon. The tales eased Kasia’s anger and worry, but the reveal of magic made her feel conflicted once more. She hid that deep inside her. Kasia had alway suspected that Nieshka was charmed but could no more have controlled that gift than they could have predicted the Dragon’s choice, and yet still the feeling of losing something Kasia never had persisted.

Thankfully, there was little time to ponder any of it as she and Nieshka reached Dvernik and went into battle with the Woods. Finally, when they had burned all the cows and put an infected Jerzy into a stone sleep, Nieshka shed her fancy clothing in exchange for something plain and ordinary with so much relief it left Kasia ashamed. Nieshka looked once again like the girl that had held Kasia’s hand all summer long and cried herself to exhaustion when she thought Kasia wouldn’t notice.

Nieshka was still the same, neither the Dragon nor the magic had change that. It was Kasia who had changed, become hard and cold. The cow pen was still a bonfire burning bright on the other side of the village, a beacon as they made their way toward home. Kasia broke the snow in front of them struggling with all the thoughts she’d been dealing with as they chased each other in her head. The grip of Nieshka’s hand as Kasia helped her through the snow was a warm comfort in the cold night. They were both so tired.

Nieshka said she was staying for a night, the hopefully confession breaking something in Kasia, Nieshka was treating them like they’d never parted but things had been so wrong for her. She pulled Nieshka in close for a hug, holding onto her tightly, telling her how much she’d been missed, leaving everything else out. But she was unable to say just how much Nieshka meant to her before wolves emerged from the woods and made it impossible. They chased them back into one of the houses, the monstrous beasts far smarter from the Wood’s interference than normal wolves. Even though they were fighting for their lives Kasia welcomed it as her problems turned meaningless and inconsequential.

Outmatched and exhausted, Kasia was comforted that at least she’d seen Nieshka one last time when the Dragon came to their rescue. The magic that Nieshka had used seemed amazing but watching the Dragon break the wolves like they were nothing was something else entirely. Everything neatly solved with words and a slight hand movement.

However one of them got lucky, with just scratch of it’s claws the Wood’s corruption bloomed green then black on his skin in mere moments. The potion Nieshka used doing nothing but slowing the spread. Nieshka gave her the fire heart potion, instructing Kasia to come burn the tower with them inside if the Woods took hold of them, and then they were gone, leaving Kasia alone again with a burden that she could not fathom fulfilling.

She wasn’t allowed to go meet them at the tower to decide their fate. Instead, she had a week of sleepless nights and miserable days heart beating out of control. She didn’t even know if she was angry any more, just that she felt as hollow as if she was again watching Nieshka disappear right in front of her the first time her hands held out, reaching, but unable to touch.

When the escort returned with news that the Dragon and Nieshka presented themselves whole and undamaged, she could finally breathe again. Once more she tried to pick up her life, but something felt wrong. She felt wrong. It was somehow worse knowing Nieshka’s fate.

The rush of helping save the village and fight the Woods was gone and the simple life that she thought she might have desired now seemed impossibly dull and unappealing. Men still looked and asked about her but Kasia had no interest in them, which strangely only made them try harder. They started to hang around where she liked to go, harassing the troubadours that she wanted to talk to, following her when she wanted to be alone, and pestering her at home. It was as if her disinterest was an aphrodisiac to them. Did it not matter what she wanted?

Her brothers took to answering the door and her parents stopped relaying messages. Kasia tried to avoid thinking about it and did anything to distract herself from the feeling that everything was wrong, but she became clumsy, broke things, and lost her temper. She slept in the middle of the day and had to force herself to do things.

The tower was still there holding Nieshka apart from her, but now it felt further away then she could ever reach. She didn’t even know what she wanted anymore.

 

* * *

 

The calm was not to last, it appeared that the Woods could hold a grudge. When the Woods’ creatures snatched Kasia up from the banks of the river, she struggled, she would not let the Woods have her. Even though she knew no one came back from the Woods she refused to give up even when she was forced inside a tree.

She crawled her way out and, at first, she was certain that she could walk out of the Woods herself. But the longer she was lost in the forest, the more that she started to feel her anger dissolve and a lingering sense of being prey set in. There was plenty of time to think and nothing but foreboding ambiance to distract her. There was nothing in the Woods at all, she walked cautiously at first but nothing attacked though she could feel eyes on her. Instead her thoughts chased her, around and around, she couldn’t stop thinking about how everyone had told her that, surely, the Dragon would pick her, but, in her heart, she never felt it was true. It was probably for the best that the Dragon had taken Nieshka after all.

Kasia sometimes realized that she’d been walking in circles, but, every time that she stopped to rest, to give up, she thought about seeing Nieshka again, of reaching out once more to grasp her hand. She kept moving, feeling time passing even though the Woods remained unchanging looming over her, every path a dead end.

When Kasia finally saw Nieshka, she was reaching for her through a portal in the middle of the air, magic all around her. It didn’t matter to Kasia that she could now feel the Woods’ controlling her body, or the long grind of time that she lost trapped in the endless Woods, Nieshka was calling to her. When she went stumbling toward the ethereal light and Nieshka everything they felt about each other became exposed and on display every cruel twisted thought and feeling, but also all of their hope, adoration, and love.

Reaching for that light Kasia knew her own faults and doubts were shared and reflected in Nieshka’s face.

Nieshka called out to her, wanted her, accepted Kasia as she was, didn’t care that she was angry, jealous, and petty. Kasia wanted to take Nieshka’s hand and give her anything, everything, her life, Nieshka could have it.

The Woods wouldn’t keep her. Even if she died it would not get to keep her body. When Nieshka was setting the woods around Kasia on fire, she pushed forward into that light, into herself, wrestling control of her body pulling her fingers one by one off of Nieshka’s neck. The Woods screamed consumed in flames as Nieshka spoke a spell of fire one last time and Kasia was released, alone and free.

Black spots danced across her vision, her body hot, heavy, and wrong, but Nieshka held her close, and Kasia held her back, feeling those hand on her, soothing her. She wasn’t going to let go this time.

Sleep took her then and for long time nightmares chased her in and out of consciousness, but Nieshka was always only an arm's length away. Kasia felt Nieshka’s warm fingers trail down her face sometimes in the rare moments that she was aware if not awake. The Woods still towered over her in her dreams, she couldn’t tell if she was free or still trapped for a long time. Finally she opened her eyes to a room she’d never known before, sparsely furnished with a map of the valley on the wall. Kasia’s body felt wrong, but when she turned her head Nieshka was tucked in next to her and the warmth on that side of her body finally made sense.

“Nieshka,” Kasia said, her voice hoarse and much too weak but she was heard all the same, Nieshka startled awake, her hair a mess and eyes deeply shadowed. She pushed herself up to get a better look at Kasia, reaching out to cup her face, smiling even as she cried. Kasia struggled with her body, it was heavy and ill-fitting, refusing to follow her orders, but she forced her hands to move up and hold Nieshka’s hands.

Her hands were so warm and looking up into her eyes Kasia realized that they’d probably always be held apart by fate but that Nieshka was the only one she always feel empty without. Tears rolled down her face too and Nieshka held her close, both of them knowing that this would probably be fleeting and determined to be as close as they could be while they still had the chance. Nieshka laid back down, back up against Kasia, holding her hand.

Nieshka told her to sleep in a drowsy voice an arm wrapped tight around Kasia, dropping off just as quickly as she’d awaken but Kasia was wide awake. For the first time in a long time she knew what she wanted but didn’t know what to do. She couldn’t make herself go back to sleep her thoughts swirling around in her head. Every place that Nieshka touched her felt warm.

Kasia turned her head and kissed Nieshka, pressing her lips to the soft skin of her cheek tasting salt, then she kissed her nose, and finally her forehead, before pressing closer. Letting her head rest against Nieshka’s, Kasia closed her eyes feeling her body relax, the feeling of joy and despair wanting to burst out of her chest. It couldn’t be wrong to feel this way and yet Kasia wasn’t sure it could be shared with anyone else.

Clinging a little she listened to the sound of Nieshka’s breathing, even if she was unsure of everything else, Kasia knew that she was in love with Nieshka.

She held Nieshka close, their hearts beating in sync, hands intertwined.

**Author's Note:**

> Lots of thanks to my wonderful beta reader, Samuraiter, for helping me try to fix all the things.


End file.
